Thursday, December 05, 2013

Cardinal in Snow

Hi everyone! I'm terribly sorry for being so inactive. I've been busy doing student-related things like being studious and not having a social life and the usual. I'm going to try to squeeze in a few Christmas manicures here and there, but my exam schedule is pretty hectic, so no promises. Otherwise, feel free to check out my past holiday manicures for some inspiration.

While searching for my own inspiration I stumbled upon a striking photo of a cardinal among snowy trees. I also saw similar photos with bluejays that looked really beautiful, so hopefully I can try that out too. For now here's my cardinal surrounded by snow-covered branches and berries. Unfortunately, I don't have step-by-step photos for this one. I stopped photographing the process because I didn't think the design would work out- I had to go back and rework it a lot, making everything too complicated. The process was pretty much the same as my previous work though, starting with reds and shading with burgundy and brown, later highlighting with orange tones and white.

I started with a base of American Apparel T-Shirt. I used a small paint brush to start on the cardinal with American Apparel Pink Ladies. I shaded with American Apparel Poppy, American Apparel Downtown LA, American Apparel Port, American Apparel Makeup, and American Apparel Raccoon. I used the last two shades for the branches, and American Apparel Army Jacket and American Apparel Hunter for pine needles. I used a dotting tool and American Apparel Poppy for the berries, and added white to some of the branches for snow. Finally I added snowflakes with a dotting tool and a silver glitter polish, and went over the snow with China Glaze Snowglobe for added sparkle.